The present invention concerns a timepiece, particularly a wristwatch, including an alarm mechanism able to produce an alarm signal at a predetermined moment.
Timepieces fitted with a device providing the user with visual information indicating whether the alarm is switched on or off, and simultaneously locking or releasing the strike-hammers of the alarm mechanism are already known. By way of example, British Patent No. GB 309 306, in the name of Schatz can be cited, which relates to such a type of timepiece. More precisely, the Schatz Patent discloses a timepiece of the alarm type including a lever of substantially triangular shape bearing, at its base, two inscriptions respectively indicating that the alarm of the timepiece is switched on or off. Depending on the position occupied by the lever, one or other of these inscriptions appears through an aperture arranged in the dial of the alarm clock. At its tip, the lever is pivotably mounted and includes a control button which projects outside the alarm clock case. By moving this button alternately in one direction or the other, the user can switch the striking-mechanism on and off as he wishes. Simultaneously, the lever locks or releases the strike-hammers of the alarm mechanism via a stopping member. Thus, depending upon the position into which the control button is moved, the alarm clock will provide the user with visual information indicating whether the alarm is switched on or not, and the strike-hammers of the alarm mechanism will be simultaneously locked or released.
A mechanism of the kind that has just been described, although suited to a timepiece of the alarm type, may however be difficult to adapt to a wristwatch. Indeed, the control button by means of which the state of the alarm can be adjusted, moves between two extreme positions along part of the circumference of the alarm clock. Mounted on the case of a wristwatch worn on a user's wrist, such a button could thus change position inadvertently, for example via the effect of a shock or by catching on the jacket sleeve of the person wearing it, such that said person would never reliably know the state of the alarm mechanism of his watch.